Fantastic weather, thirsty gardens

What a fantastic weekend of weather - although my garden is looking a little thirsty now. I'm a fan of the extension to daylight savings even if I do hate the dark mornings. Long sunny days and relatively mild evenings until about 8pm means, in some senses, it still feels like summer. We ran a poll at the Weather Watch Centre last week about whether the extension of daylight savings was a good thing - 70% of you said yes. I wonder if that result would be the same if the weather was wet, cold and miserable? When I was a kid our school used to have short days if it was a really wet day (apparently that's a rural school thing) - perhaps we could look at a similar system for daylight savings. If it's all wet and miserable someone with authority should say "ok, we're finishing this daylight savings now". If it's sunny and hot, maybe they could extend it well into April? "Ahh this weather is good, lets extend it for another month". Yes, I know, it's a fantastic idea that would never ever work.

Well this week the Southern Ocean is giving us something it doesn't do too often - it's giving us a nice, big, anticyclone. This will come through on Tuesday with a central air pressure above 1040hPa which is definitely big and strong. Now with the air pressure so high to the south of New Zealand and lower air pressure remaining about the Coral Sea and along the tropics there could be quite an extensive squash zone over parts of the country. Tuesday and Wednesday look likely to be the windiest days with strong sou'easters over much of the North Island, especially the upper north on the fringes of this large high (remember the centre is way down south of Invercargill).

This high is coming out of the Southern Ocean where temperatures are a lot lower than up our way...that means some colder air should be coming in for the South Island with frosts possible at night. Cool crisp weather in the South Island with winds dying out as the week progresses. Strong, warm, nor'westers might return in time for the weekend. Western parts of the North Island will be sunniest and warmest.

So what's happened to our mate Jasper? Last week I talked about Cyclone Jasper... he was a nightmare for forecasters as he pretty much did the opposite of what they were predicting...about 3 times. Finally they said he would die...and he did. I also said to keep an eye on the remnants of the storm. Well the storm no longer exists...but the energy that he created definitely remains. Active thunderstorms between the Coral Sea and Fiji may start spinning to create a new low this week. There are four possible outcomes.

1) A low will form this week in the southern Coral Sea/north west Tasman...and move down Aussie's east coast affecting Sydney.

2) A low may form in the Coral Sea on Friday - and some computer models show it becoming another tropical cyclone (although it would have a new name as Jasper's low has now gone).

3) Both lows may happen.

4) The high over New Zealand will strengthen and push a ridge so far north that it effectively "shuts down" any low pressure development. One thing that's becoming increasingly clear is that the conditions above the Coral Sea are incredible unstable right now. It's all about timing. If there was no high air pressure over the Tasman and New Zealand I think we would've seen a continuation of big lows from the tropics affecting us - potentially bringing more flooding to Northland and other northern or western regions. Instead we've been protected by large highs. How long will this continue for? Well that's anyone's guess. I think when they finally do stop affecting New Zealand our weather patterns will change significantly. Why? Because while we're "locked in" to this stable weather pattern we're not noticing the cold air building around Antarctica nor the big cyclones and storms forming north of us in the tropics. Without the highs to protect us we're a sitting duck to the unsettled weather that forms in March and April.

Some Interesting links:
Here a few things I thought you might find interesting. It's not every day you see towns flooded with water full of ice. Check out this story in the Herald about floodwaters and blizzards which have combined to produce some record breaking conditions in Fargo (yep, same place as the movie with the same name.

My two favourite weather photos at the moment. Actually the first is probably my favourite weather photo so far this year - simply titled "Fog" by John Krippner. The second is called "Pink Rain" by Ralph McKenzie. They're both stunning pictures - thanks for sending them in.

If you have some interesting weather photos send them in to us...it's that time of year when you start to get amazing dews, fogs, and mists.

Top photo: It's almost time to wave goodbye to the golden weather. Photo / Getty Images